Olin’s Kittner starts two-year term helming Consortium board

Dorothy D. Kittner, WashU Olin’s senior associate dean of the Center for Experiential Learning, began a two-year term as the board chair for the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management on July 1.

The nonprofit organization, based in Chesterfield, Missouri, was founded in 1966 at WashU Olin and is dedicated to increasing business school enrollment by women and underrepresented minorities. Kittner’s appointment came about after she was nominated and elected by the Consortium board of trustees following a change in its governance design.

“I am so proud that WashU Olin Business School is one of the founding members of The Consortium. To be representing Olin in this regard is both humbling and exciting, as Olin has helped me get where I am today,” said Kittner, herself an Olin MBA alum from 1994. “This is another opportunity for me to further develop my leadership competencies.”

During a sabbatical in the early 1960s, Washington University business school Professor Sterling Schoen realized that no Black men served in leadership in any of the Fortune 500 companies at the time. The realization inspired him to assemble an academic conference that resulted in the idea for The Consortium, which launched with three schools—WashU, Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin.

Today, The Consortium’s membership includes 22 top-tier business schools across the country. It recruits students who have shown a “demonstrated commitment to diversity” into its program and collaborates with member schools to admit students to full-time MBA programs.

“As both an Olin MBA alumnae and member of the staff, being asked to be at the helm of The Consortium board of trustees allows me the opportunity to continue to shine a light on the excellent students, faculty and staff at Olin,” Kittner said.

Pictured above: Dorothy Kittner, left, who also serves as interim director of the Olin career center, with Anna Gonzalez, WashU’s vice chancellor for student affairs.